How Clean is Frank Gambale's Sweeping Style Without Distortion?

[AlsoRan]

I have several of Frank Gambale's DVD, bought many years ago, and I love them. But, I have never heard his sweeping technique without distortion.

Can someone tell me if it sounds as precise without distortion?

[Debora Miano]

We spend months of our lives talking about all these "guitar magazine" kind of discussions, who's the best guitar player and his sweep picking technique, which angle the pick has to be, what kind of strings he's playing and so on and so on.
We, as musicians, as people who is dedicating our lives to transmit emotions through jazz, should step back a little bit and just take it from "how do i transmit my feelings through this sweep picking?". "how can my sweep give to the listener the same emotions that i feel running up and down my half diminished arpeggio?".
when did it happen that being fast and having a clean sound became more important of knowing how to make a person feel goosebumps with playing that modulation to the bIIImaj7?

sorry for the vent, but i see too many young players out there who are too much into forums and details like this, and have forgotten how it is to take a crazy ride through the changes.

tell me when was the last time you have seen an ecstatic face while seeing someone soloing over inner urge. not even inner urge! our emotional roots have been annihilated! what future for JAZZ?

[Dr. Angelo]

Debora I feel your pain.
but you must not stop searching, practicing your chops, wake up every morning with a smile and go to the shed nails those licks as if you were Wes in Holland.

While it is true that many young man today have a very dry approach with an excellent technique, it is true that for the truly talented emotional players is vital that our technique is in the place it should be.

Write down a practice routine for yourself

15 minutes reading
40 minutes arpegios
25 minutes Charlie Parker licks

And I assure your technique will be much better than what is now


AS FOR JAZZ AHAHAHA WE DONT KNOW WE JUST KEEP BLOWINNNNN

see ya cats

[jzucker]

he's got a straight ahead jazz album playing acoustic. It sounds great. Lots of folks have attempted to pigeon hole his playing because they are unable to achieve the same results but their attempts to belittle him based on him (apparently) using .009 strings and heavy distortion have been disproved.

For goodness sake, he's Chick Corea's favorite guitarist.

[jzucker]

It's all about expressing what we have in our heads. it would be ludicrous to talk about saxophone without examining the effect that Bob Berg and Mike Brecker and John Coltrane had on the instrument, the approach to inside/outside playing and the physical prowess and level to which they have risen expectations. And likewise, some of the young players like Tom Quayle have taken the instrument to a new level in terms of technique *AND* expression.

You shouldn't bury your head in the sand but if you are satisfied with your technique as it is, then by all means feel free to ignore the threads that discuss it.

You may be too young to remember this but there was a time when the rock and fusion guys made fun of the jazz players like Joe Pass and Herb Ellis saying they were too technical. Now the tide has turned. I find it pretty amusing.

We spend months of our lives talking about all these "guitar magazine" kind of discussions, who's the best guitar player and his sweep picking technique, which angle the pick has to be, what kind of strings he's playing and so on and so on.
We, as musicians, as people who is dedicating our lives to transmit emotions through jazz, should step back a little bit and just take it from "how do i transmit my feelings through this sweep picking?". "how can my sweep give to the listener the same emotions that i feel running up and down my half diminished arpeggio?".
when did it happen that being fast and having a clean sound became more important of knowing how to make a person feel goosebumps with playing that modulation to the bIIImaj7?

sorry for the vent, but i see too many young players out there who are too much into forums and details like this, and have forgotten how it is to take a crazy ride through the changes.

tell me when was the last time you have seen an ecstatic face while seeing someone soloing over inner urge. not even inner urge! our emotional roots have been annihilated! what future for JAZZ?

[jzucker]

[mr. beaumont]

But wait...he's not using a 5k guitar either!

[nick1994]

yeah his album natural high is all acoustic guitar, it's scary how clean his playing is and how refined and clear his lines are. certainly not a favorite of mine but it's really good.

[MarkRhodes]

I prefer him this way---acoustic---to the way I first heard him, on "Brave New Guitar."

(Not that I wasn't knocked out by his chops but the fusion-y vibe was never my thing.)

[AlsoRan]

Thanks the videos, folks.

@Debora Miano - I love your passion for musicality over all else. I get so many emotional highs every day that I often don't need it from music. Often, I feed the technical side of my brain with guitar playing.

A therapist friend defined life for me well years ago when he said we all act according to our own needs. I did not like hearing that, but in the end, it is often true, and can be true even for martyrs.

Anyway, feel free to rant. Isn't part of what a forum is about. And it is always great to hear another person's point of view.

Now back to Gambale, I am in awe at his ability to mute those strings while he sweeps. Amazing.

[srlank]

I actually got to see Frank Gambale play live with Chick Corea a couple years back. They were on the same bill with Zappa Plays Zappa. I only knew FG's music through a little booklet I had on his picking technique and a couple of videos on YouTube. I really had not paid that much attention to what I had heard. When I saw him however, he was amazing, and was getting some incredibly unique sounds. Maybe they did come from using the idiosyncrasies of the guitar, but it was very musical, beautiful sounding lines.
Also he did a jam with Dweezil, and it looked to me like Dweezil was pretty much in awe of Frank!

[Hep To The Jive]

We spend months of our lives talking about all these "guitar magazine" kind of discussions, who's the best guitar player and his sweep picking technique, which angle the pick has to be, what kind of strings he's playing and so on and so on.
We, as musicians, as people who is dedicating our lives to transmit emotions through jazz, should step back a little bit and just take it from "how do i transmit my feelings through this sweep picking?". "how can my sweep give to the listener the same emotions that i feel running up and down my half diminished arpeggio?".
when did it happen that being fast and having a clean sound became more important of knowing how to make a person feel goosebumps with playing that modulation to the bIIImaj7?

sorry for the vent, but i see too many young players out there who are too much into forums and details like this, and have forgotten how it is to take a crazy ride through the changes.

tell me when was the last time you have seen an ecstatic face while seeing someone soloing over inner urge. not even inner urge! our emotional roots have been annihilated! what future for JAZZ?

Threads like that could be very educational for everyone, if even just for the videos posted.

Frank Gambale dueling solos with the piano player- wow, what a treat! And the bass player was sublime! I do not care about FG technique, nor do I want to sound like him, but it was so great on every level, and very entertaining.

''tell me when was the last time you have seen an ecstatic face while seeing someone soloing over inner urge?''- never, ever.

[grahambop]

''tell me when was the last time you have seen an ecstatic face while seeing someone soloing over inner urge?''- never, ever.

Well I was pretty ecstatic the time I saw Joe Henderson play it.

[destinytot]

Super-chops. (A line over 'Four'?)

[christianm77]

I like FG's clean playing. Jimmy Bruno, Jaimmy Raney and Pasquale Grasso also use 'economy picking' to great effect clean.

I'm working again on technique - more on the basis of relaxation and economy of movement than trying to play fast per se. I think technique is extremely important but normally get framed in a really stupid way by players coming from a shred mindset. What way you move your pick is really a very small part of the total package.

Anyway, the quicker you can step away from exercises and move towards playing real musical lines, the better.

[Debora Miano]

Debora I feel your pain.
but you must not stop searching, practicing your chops, wake up every morning with a smile and go to the shed nails those licks as if you were Wes in Holland.

While it is true that many young man today have a very dry approach with an excellent technique, it is true that for the truly talented emotional players is vital that our technique is in the place it should be.

Write down a practice routine for yourself

15 minutes reading
40 minutes arpegios
25 minutes Charlie Parker licks

And I assure your technique will be much better than what is now


AS FOR JAZZ AHAHAHA WE DONT KNOW WE JUST KEEP BLOWINNNNN

see ya cats

you bet i keep blowin'

as for the practice, it's hard, you know, when you start being a good player and all, to find the time and mind clearance between gigs.
i would have never expected to start giggin' like this just five or six years ago! i was very skeptical about this jazz thing.
anyways, i do reading, also classical etudes, of course.
arpeggios are 90% of my solos, therefore 40 minutes..... eheheheh!
yes maybe the Parker licks. i must say i have been a bit cocky, got some habits. you know what i mean, we are the majority of guitarists out there.... we come from rock and start shredding around with just a big fat dark tone and think we're cool and don't need to learn much more than we know.
i bet you know what i mean, and most of the guitarists here.... let's admit it
COME ON

i skipped the Parker licks when i was starting and now i pay the consequences, in classic jazz environments, right? luckily enough i am just involved with the modern stuff and me and my cats are so interlocked, that trying to fit the classic thing wouldn't fit.
that's my idea and fear sometimes.
hence, i don't practice Parker
please guys don't hate me

[sgcim]

I have several of Frank Gambale's DVD, bought many years ago, and I love them. But, I have never heard his sweeping technique without distortion.

Can someone tell me if it sounds as precise without distortion?

So I guess the answer to the OP's question is yes, he can sound as precise without distortion, but in place of distortion, he's got to set the action so low that it sounds like he's playing a bunch of rubber bands!

[jazzimprov]

"Well I was pretty ecstatic the time I saw Joe Henderson play it."

ahhh the one sax player I never saw, and my favorite....

The way he could play on the very "slightly off" harmonic fringes of the changes and make It sound so beautiful.....

"Power to the People" --still such an amazing recording!

...consider yourself lucky!

[jzucker]

So I guess the answer to the OP's question is yes, he can sound as precise without distortion, but in place of distortion, he's got to set the action so low that it sounds like he's playing a bunch of rubber bands!

This is such an narrow-minded assessment IMO. Many improvisers with chops play with low action on their acoustic guitars. Another guitarist who has played with everyone from McCoy Tyner to Herbie Hancock gets a similar sound. Paul Bollenback.

[sgcim]

This is such an narrow-minded assessment IMO. Many improvisers with chops play with low action on their acoustic guitars. Another guitarist who has played with everyone from McCoy Tyner to Herbie Hancock gets a similar sound. Paul Bollenback.

That didn't sound like 'rubber bands' like the FG video. I didn't hear the strings pounding the frets like FG.
The point here is that a player like PB is more about playing a spontaneous, swinging jazz solo than showing off the fact that he can play difficult to play intervallic licks like FG.

My "narrow minded assessment" as you termed it, stands; those type of sweep picking ideas are facilitated by some type of sacrifice in sound; distortion, overly low action and rolling down the treble and cranking up the bass tone controls.
The plectrum guitar is not an easy instrument to play those types of things.. IMHO, Lenny Breau's recording of McCoy's "Visions" didn't involve some sacrifice in an appropriate jazz sound.

[sgcim]